It’s dark by the time I feel calm enough to handle going back to the apartment. I don’t want to give anyone a reason to ask me questions, least of all Ruby. I want to pretend like this is just a regular day. I want to hang onto normal, or at least try to find it again.

And forget I blasted four guys away from me with whatever the hell that’d been.

My hands start shaking.

In a parking space on the street outside my building, I close my eyes and clench my fingers on the steering wheel. I can handle this. I’ll just go upstairs, tell Ruby I’m not hungry, hope she lets that excuse fly for a second time this week, and get into my room as fast as I can.

No problem.

Exhaling sharply, I release the steering wheel and push open the door.

Amar is waiting on the steps of my building.

I freeze. For a moment, it’s all I can do not to scream.

“Cait.” He pushes to his feet and starts toward me.

I retreat fast. “What the hell are you doing here? Are you stalking me?”

He pauses. “You never showed at Bianca’s today.”

I don’t know what to say. I feel ragged and frayed like the threads in that hospital girl’s Protection. “I never said I was coming.”

“You need help in this, Cait.”

“No, what I need is to be left alone! I need everyone to just leave me the hell alone! What the fuck is it to you how I handle this, huh? You just can’t keep out of other people’s business?”

Amar doesn’t move for a moment. His jaw muscles jump. “Fine.”

He turns to go.

My feet move before I register the impulse. “Wait, no. Amar, I’m sorry. Please.”

He stops. I shiver hard and hug my arms to myself. I can’t take this out on him. I don’t even know why I am, except maybe it’s because he’s safer than anything else in this crazy, apparently demonic world. But, God help me, that’s not a good reason. That’s not any kind of reason. That’s just cruel.

And I can’t drive away the only person with answers.

I wet my lips, trying to calm down. Answers, he might have, but right now, I sort of don’t want them. I don’t think I’ll be able to handle any more revelations, any more information about how much of a freak I’ve become. I just want it all to stop. I’m going to shatter if this madness doesn’t stop.

But I want him here too.

“Thank you,” I make myself continue. “Thank you for checking on me. I just—”

He glances back. My stomach flip-flops for no good reason.

“I’m sorry.” I choke out the words again.

He looks up and down the street quickly, almost like he’s checking for something, and then he comes back toward me. “What is it? What happened?”

It’s hard to breathe. “Bad day.”

He pauses. His attention flicks around the neighborhood again.

And then his hand takes mine.

My breathing stops. His palm is hard. Strong. Warm, but not like he’s nervous. His dark eyes don’t leave mine, and I can’t tell what I’m seeing in them. They’re just so deep, I could drown.

“Come with me,” he says quietly.

He turns, and my feet hurry to follow. My mind is stalled in that moment, though, reeling from the instant his fingers first touched mine.

We cross the grass, come to the corner of the house. The streetlight illuminates the yard, but the glow ends in a sharp line of shadow when it reaches the wall’s edge.

Amar looks back to me. “Deep breath. Don’t let go of my hand. Concentrate on staying with me.”

My brow furrows. His rises in response.

I nod quickly. I draw in a lungful of air.

He steps forward into the shadow, bringing me with him.

The air goes cold. Sharply frigid like a blast from a freezer for all of an instant, and then it becomes cool. Mist-like. Darkness blurs in front of my eyes like rushing fog on a moonless night. And then it’s over.

I stagger onto a grassy slope. We’re on a hill at the edge of a dark forest, and a swath of silver-touched grass is spread out ahead of us beneath the bright moon. In the distance, lights glisten. The city. We’re miles from town.

“You all right?” Amar asks.

I tug my focus to him. “What—” I swallow hard. “What was that?”

“Shadow-crossing. It’s one of the ways we get around.”

My head moves in a nod, as if those words were anything approaching normal. His mouth tightens.

“Over here.” He doesn’t let go of my hand when he starts toward the tree line.

I follow. A park bench comes into view amid the shadows, tucked away beneath a massive oak tree. I can see the dull line of a sidewalk behind it, the concrete weaving a serpentine path through the woods, and I realize we must be in Glacy Park, the nature preserve outside town.

He sits down on the bench, and I join him, but then his hand leaves mine. I battle back a surge of disappointment.

“So what happened today?” he asks me.

I tuck my hands away inside my sleeves and bundle my arms tightly against my stomach. I don’t know where to begin, so I don’t. “It’s nothing.”

He’s silent.

The words come anyway, grudgingly. “Some guys today. Friends of that boy that I… It’s not important.”

“Did they hurt you?”

I can hear an edge in his voice, cold and sharp as a knife.

The stall door rips open. Amar is standing there, absolute fury on his face. He snags the guy, tears him away from me, and sends him to his knees outside the stall. And I can’t help it. I start toward him.

Amar grabs me, slams me against the wall, and then his lips are on mine.

Pure energy pours into me. It’s hot. Blinding. My world vanishes in a blast of white light while heat surges through me, shredding my thoughts, my lust, and leaving only a stillness like the universe has chosen this moment to stand still.

Amar pulls away from me. His gaze searches mine like he’s trying to read whether something has worked in my eyes.

I can only stare at him.

A ragged noise breaks the silence. I blink, my attention dropping toward it.

The other guy is struggling to reach his feet. “What… what the hell did you do to…”

He crashes to the ground, his body shaking harder.

I choke. Oh God…

Amar doesn’t let go of me. His fingers digging into my arm, he pulls me with him from the stall. I stagger after him, frantically pulling my panties and skirt into place.

His hand reaches out, touching the shoulder of the guy on the floor. The man gasps, straightening like he’s suddenly woken from a nightmare.

Amar keeps moving. Still hanging onto me, he marches out of the restroom, past the bar, and straight out the door. The bouncer stares but doesn’t say a word.

It’s not till we’re back by the car that Amar stops.

“What the hell were you doing?” he demands, releasing me sharply.

I shiver, my arms hugging my middle. I don’t respond. In the darkened parking lot, we’re alone, with only a few people on the distant sidewalk who might even notice we’re here.

Breathing hard, Amar turns away, running a hand over his head. “You could have—you would have killed him! Is that why you agreed to come here tonight? You wanted to kill somebody?”

He looks back at me like he’s never seen me before, like I might be a monster, and when he speaks again, rancor drips from his tone like hot acid, burning me. “Was the idea of sleeping with me that terrible that you’d rather someone died?”

My arms tighten around my middle. “No.”

“Then what the hell were you—”

“I was trying to control it.”

“I was going to help you—”

“By what? Fucking me like I’m on your damn to-do list? Well, thank you so much, but I think I’ll just—”

I cut off as he strides toward me, coming to a stop only a few inches away.

“It wasn’t going to be like that.” His voice is quiet. Intense. His dark eyes burn into mine.